AWmusic

With their fifth album “Living Thing” being released on March 31st, the Swedish trio went into SXSW to once again impress the hipsters with their blend of soft melodious indie pop. It was a great opportunity to remind the people just who they are. This is an ADD generation that forgets who jumps from one band to the next as quickly as bands jump from one groupie to the next. I talked to a few fellow SXSWers about PBJ before the festival and they didn’t seem that excited. You talk to the same person three years ago and they probably would have given their first born rabies to get into the show.

Luckily for PBJ, they were nicely set up on the first night – following rockers Von Blondie and leading up to the nights big show – Glasvegas. This was the perfect opportunity to impress some folks (some…young folks muhaha). SXSW runs on moderately tight time schedules, each band has about 40 minutes to play and 20 minutes to set up. PBJ took a long time to setup. A really long time, maybe 45 minutes. When something like this happens, people get a bit worked up – everyone goes on tight schedules here and when something goes off, well, this screws things up. After what seemed like an eternity, PBJ took the stage…and sucked.

How is it they sucked? First of all, they had sound problems throughout the whole show, disrupting any kind of flow they may have. Sing a bit, stop a bit, sing a bit..stop a bit. Bad for the crowd. Secondly, the music, for some reason, was dry and awkwardly paced. The band didn’t seem to know what they were doing and when you have to wait 45 minutes for a band to set up and then the band goes on stage and looks all confused, it results in a high level of suckitude. We also suspect the band had their fair of drinks before the show. At one point, they attempted to whistle (maybe to start off Young Folks?) however, they failed at that attempt and just went into another song. It didn’t help that when they did get everything working, the new material did not seem to hold up to the old stuff (especially the Justice influence children singing sampled filled single “Nothing to Worry About”. All these factors resulted in the crowd turning on the band halfway through the set and well, lets just say, most people were glad when it was over.

Poor Cow by Peter Bjorn and John

Ricky from the Panic Manual (a website we love) is helping us out with guest blogging (or syndicating) his SXSW reviews. Original post.

With so much happening in my life recently, my search for interesting and exciting news has kind of taken a back seat. I apologize. With school, work (with lots of overtime) and writing for one food and two music websites, I hardly have even enough time for myself; but alas the light at the end of this tunnel is almost in my reach. OK, enough of my bitching, let’s get our news on.

Winter sucks… Cold and miserable weather gives you a desire to do nothing more than hibernate for those long months, praying to have a glimpse of warmth to defrost your fingers and toes. Fear not my little ones, spring is quickly approaching and here in Vancouver we are already getting a nice taste of it. The development of new life associated with this time of year doesn’t only apply to plants and animals, spring also spawns fantastic music.

Here’s a list of albums to look forward to and hopefully put a smile on your ice chiseled face.

March 10
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz! (originally due to be released April 14 but bumped due to a leak. You can also stream it from their myspace page starting today)

March 17
Les Claypool – Of Fungi and Foe
MSTRKRFT – Fist of God (the much anticipated sophomore release)

March 24
The Decemberists – Hazards of Love
Pet Shop Boys – Yes (for all you synthpop revivalists)
Röyksopp – Junior (there will also be a follow-up album titled ‘Senior’ due later in the year.)

March 31
Leonard Cohen – Live in London (just before he’s live at Coachella)
Peter, Bjorn & John – Living Things

April 14
Metric – Fantasies (from the teasers I’ve heard, this is going to be another classic Metric album)

May 12
Art Brut – Art Brut vs. Satan (If this title is any indication, this album will kick ass)

April 21
Jane’s Addiction – A Cabinet of Curiosities box set (I’m so waiting for this one)
Tortoise – “Title still TBA”

May 5
Conor Oberst – Outer South
Peaches – I Feel Cream (everything about this girl is raunchy and it doesn’t seem to be stopping any time soon, thankfully)

May 19
Iron & Wine – Around the Well (this band owns… go buy this album)

June 9
Sonic Youth – The Eternal (another album I’m really looking forward to)

Also, some time in May Green Day will be releasing their eighth studio album titled ‘21st Century Breakdown’ and it’ll be broken into three “acts”, “Heroes and Cons,” “Charlatans and Saints,” and “Horseshoes and Hand grenades”. Check greenday.com for updates.

Röyksopp – Happy Up Here

Happy Up Here from Röyksopp on Vimeo.

Metric’s “Help I’m Alive” (Official Acoustic Version)

Peter, Bjorn and John then announced earlier this year that they would be doing an instrumental album, I initial thought they were crazy. However when you see Bjorn’s production, you quickly see that it could be done… even if it’s not preferred as they are great at making pop songs.

Seaside Rock hit stores on September 23rd, to limited press. Not surprisingly though as most people tend to shy away from these instrumental records. It’s a little refreshing to see an artist risk a whole lot by making something out of left field. For that no matter the result of this album, I do commend PB & J for trying something new.

The album starts off with Inland Empire, with a intro much like Portishead’s Machine Gun but mixed with Bjorn’s string arrangements that you would find on Lykke Li’s album. The use of an electronic drum set is used throughout taking influences from all the place using various instruments and even adding a guitar solo mixed with trumpets/saxophones as the closer. It’s not the best song but there are things to like.

Say Something (Mukiya) uses steel drums (probably one of my favorite instruments) as well with a catchy bass line throughout the track to become one of my favorite. While I am minimally describing these songs, it’s hard to cover everything that is going on. It’s a pretty thorough album that doesn’t repeat itself for too long.

My favorite track is probably School of Kraut, since it’s upbeat and frantic in nature. It just sticks out to me even though I expect to be annoyed by the sharp sounds every 5 seconds, it really just worked for me.

There are some downsides to this album, Next Stop Bjursele, Erik’s Fishing Ship and Norrlands Riviera where we get spoken word stuff in a foreign language that I’d rather not listen to. It’s not horrendous but it’s not music. At one point where did they decide they wanted to stop doing an instrumental track? Things were pretty good up until that point.

The rest of the album is solid, Peter Bjorn and John know how to play and create music that’s exceptional. I think they just took it too far with the spoken word stuff. P.S. I agree with the P4K review for the most part except the author hating the two tracks I like.

Rating: 3.4 out of 5

Say Something (Mukiya) by Peter Bjorn and John

School of Kraut by Peter Bjorn and John

The movie isn’t really all that funny. The premise is simple, the drama program is going to be shutdown after less then stellar reviews and puts on a offensive musical filled with sex etc while the main protagonist struggles with his own personal life.

At best it provided a few chuckles out of me but they were few and far between. For a movie to supposedly be quite offensive it had a lot of unfunny racist jokes and no real character development which felt cheesy at best.

It failed to be offensive or evenly comedically stupid and choose the “middle” ground and ended up as a movie that is quite forgettable and probably wishing that I saw Tropic Thunder again. There just isn’t much to the film that I could talk to you about. The storyline is predictable from the outset with no real shocks or surprises. Involving race and sexuality was minimal or poorly done.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5

Here’s a mini-playlist somewhat related to movie but I’ll keep it short:
Play Your Part (Part 1) by Girl Talk
Let’s Call It Off by Peter, Bjorn and John
Sober by Muse
Stars and Sons by Broken Social Scene
Totem On The Timeline by The Klaxons

As far as expectations go, I think the only expectation was that it had to be funny and anything extra was a bonus. I guess I guage how funny a movie is with the type of laughter I usually give off. In the case of movies if it’s able to get me laughing like a girl…it has done its job. I will say that some jokes were way too silly that it got unnecessary though the racial jokes and debunking of stereotypes was definitely a highlight. The storyline was a bit cheesy and the jokes make the movie worthwhile. One character also had me annoyed and being overthetop stupid (forget his name but he’s the guy in the trailer making the North Korea + Al Quaeda joke). However the movie knew how to be cute/romantic yet funny at the same time so it wasn’t all drug-filled silliness.

Overall, you got what you paid for which was lots of laughs and stupid storyline or not, it had its moments. 4 out of 5.

As for the soundtrack, it wasn’t too bad with the song that stuck out the most was Mickey Avalon’s My Dick as it played after the “bottomless” party. I think the soundtrack was alright, the hip-hop tied well into the movie the only thing I hated was the use of Boyz II Men It’s So Hard To Say Goodbye. I just didn’t think it tied into the movie and the movie doesn’t need serious “sad” moments.

Anyway here’s my playlist for the movie:
(for you Googlers, the actual soundtrack list can be found here)

1. My Dick by Mickey Avalon
2. Amsterdam by Peter, Bjorn and John
3. I Gotta Run by Everybody Else
4. It Could Have Been A Brilliant Career by Belle & Sebastian
5. Stupid and Shallow by The Futureheads
6. A Better Son/Daughter by Rilo Kiley
7. Kissing In The Grass by Of Montreal
8. Because I Got High by Afroman
9. Banking On A Myth by Andrew Bird
10. Southern Comfort by Arrah and The Ferns
11. Vanished by Crystal Castles
12. Stoned Again by The Evangelicals
13. People You Meet by Bishop Allen

I could explain the meaning of each song if you don’t get why I put them in, just leave a comment and I’ll gladly respond.